A reduction in funding from Congress has bumped testing from 2015 to 2017

NASA has announced that commercial space flights will be delayed until 2017 due to decreased funding for its commercial partnership.

In a hearing with the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee's Subcommittee on Science and Space last week, Charles Bolden, NASA administrator, revealed that commercial space flights will be delayed two years.

NASA has been urging Congress to fork over the $850 million because the cost for a U.S. astronaut to ride along with the Russians is expected to increase to $63 million per seat by 2015. In addition, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said that the U.S. would have to pay the Russians $450 million annually for every year that the U.S. delays its own commercial crew vehicle development.

The plan was to send the first NASA commercial crew vehicle for testing in 2015 and to the ISS by 2016. But since Congress has only dished out $500 million of the $850 million requested, Bolden announced that the commercial crew vehicle development will be delayed two years to 2017.

"A reduction in funding from the president's request could significantly impact the program's schedule, risk, posture, and acquisition strategy," said Bolden.

Despite this delay, Bolden noted that NASA will continue working diligently on the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and Space Launch System (SLS). The MPCV will be used to transport a crew from Earth to a desired destination such as Mars, and can carry up to four people for 21 days. NASA is also looking to send astronauts deeper into space than ever before.

NASA will test the system without a crew in 2017, and test the system with a crew in 2021.

Well, a technological marvel it may be, but it also ended up being so expensive that, pending an 11th hour change of heart, the production is being shut down with a small fraction of the number originally planned being bought. Like the Shuttle; a marvel of its time, but over budget and too expensive.

At least for this low earth orbit part of NASA's portfolio, military ownership wouldn't work. The military has no better concept of cost savings then NASA, which is partly why NASA's trying to develop commercial partners for this part.

Good point. For going to Mars, for example, you're right. No way to do it cheap.

I was thinking only about low earth orbit work for now. It's been done for ages, the technology is more accessible now to private enterprise, and they're doing it better then NASA or the military ever could.

But for big projects, beyond the scope of anything thats been done before, you're right. Thats the realm of government.. at least, since Jeff Bezos is just a billionaire, not a trillionaire.